All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
As well as confusing Hansard with talk of ‘big fairies’, Labour’s Jim Sheridan has no fewer than 101 written questions for answer today on how many contracts a number of government departments have awarded to a series of companies known to be taking part in tax avoidance schemes. He also asks for details of how
In a week where the inner workings of Whitehall have rarely been out of the news, Tim Loughton’s evidence to the Education Select Committee has made a particular splash. As Isabel reported yesterday, Loughton criticised the way the department was run and claimed that the children and families agenda ‘was a declining priority’ in his
It’s all very well everyone having fun at the expense of the hapless Hansard reporter who sent a note to a Scottish MP querying whether he’d called the SNP ‘big fairies’. He might well have done. Stranger things have been uttered in the Chamber of the House of Commons. ‘Big fearties’ for a start. I
By this stage in the run-up to his Europe speech, the Prime Minister must be tempted to sit in a darkened room with his fingers in his ears shouting loudly if anyone else tries to give him more advice on Britain’s relationship with the EU. Today brings another wave of advice: some from friendly faces,
On this week’s View from 22 podcast, the Spectator’s assistant editor Freddy Gray discusses his cover feature on Barack Obama, who he argues is becoming the pacific-centric president. Although America has given us the impression they are angry with a potential EU withdrawal, Freddy concludes that Uncle Sam is just not that into us. When
Some people think that Southwold, that tranquil seaside town in Suffolk, is hopelessly middle class. So what? I love it. I like staying in the Swan hotel, with its great gilt swan on the outside, eating from the adventurous menu in the Crown, walking on the eccentric pier, admiring the strand of beach huts, and
In tomorrow’s Spectator, Rod Liddle gives his verdict on the social media storm caused by Suzanne Moore and then Julie Burchill. Liddle suggests that until the ‘entire bourgeois bien-pensant left’ self-immolates, leaving a slight scent of goji berries, bystanders can ‘enjoy ourselves watching them tear each other to pieces, mired in their competing victimhoods seething
‘We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.
Foreign Policy magazine published a remarkable story last night revealing that American diplomats have concluded that Bashar al-Assad probably used chemical weapons against his own people last month. After speaking with activists on the ground, doctors, and key military defectors who previously played a role in the country’s WMD programme, one official concluded: ‘We can’t
The Prime Minister met a group of Tory backbenchers in Downing Street this afternoon to discuss Friday’s Europe speech. I have spoken to the group’s ringleader, John Baron, who has stressed the confidential manner of the discussion, but has given Coffee House readers some exclusive details of what went on. John Baron, Peter Bone, Edward
It was written in the faces at PMQs today. Ed Miliband seemed relaxed and happy as he exploited Tory splits ahead of Cameron’s Euro-address on Friday. The PM looked irritable and resigned, like a long-distance hiker whose brand new Timberlands have started chafing just a few yards from his starting point. His conundrum is simple.
Jeremy Hunt has announced new plans to shift the NHS into the twenty first century by removing all vestiges of paper by 2018. While computerising health records sounds mundane and complicated, the Health Secretary has done his best to make the plans appear logical and advantageous. In his announcement, Hunt says: ‘The NHS cannot be the last man
Even though the Leveson talks are, by all accounts, progressing rather smoothly at present, there are still a few spanners stuck in the works here and there. Hacked Off has just published a consultation on all the bits of draft legislation on press regulation that are knocking about, and it includes the bill drafted by
After PMQs today, David Cameron must be wishing he could just get on and deliver his much-trailed Europe speech. Ed Miliband took advantage of all the speculation to mockingly question Cameron on the subject, asking him to comment on every bit of process. Cameron wouldn’t rule out this morning’s James Chapman scoop that Tory ministers
Of all the sackings in September’s reshuffle, two of the most surprising came from the Education department. So it was fascinating to hear those two victims of the purge, Tim Loughton and Nick Gibb, give their verdict on the department and their boss at the Education Select Committee this morning. Lib Dem Sarah Teather, who
To have a helicopter crash so near the site of the new American Embassy and the headquarters of MI6 raises obvious concerns for national security. I was on a train when I first heard the news, and my fellow commuters all hit their mobiles. Everyone’s first reaction seemed to be to ask if this was
This week’s Think Scotland column takes a gander, just for once, at the Scottish Green party. Patrick Harvie’s party is in favour of Scottish independence for reasons that, frankly, seem pretty damn unconvincing. I suspect that the Greens, like those parts of the far-left that also favour independence, are liable to be desperately disappointed by
It is always an understatement to say that David Cameron can’t possibly satisfy his party with his Europe speech this week: the reason being that there is no one unified position on the EU within the Conservatives, with different groups calling for different responses to Europe. Today the Fresh Start Group of Tory MPs publishes
Gordon Brown lumbered back into parliament this evening to speak in an adjournment debate at 7.10 pm. Even before dinner he managed to look both over-fed and a bit exhausted. His thick dark hair has grown greyer and longer than when we last saw him barrelling out of Downing Street, in May 2010, having just
Tell me if you have heard this already but it appears that Suzanne Moore has offended the trans-gender lobby. She did this by writing an essay about women’s anger for a Waterstone’s collection of essays, which was then republished by the New Statesman. The following sentence caused deep offence (is there any other kind?): ‘We
The irrepressible Lord Oakeshott is making mischief again: he’s using Sir Mervyn King’s comments about Goldman Sachs bonuses today to attack David Cameron and George Osborne. He’s just told Coffee House the following: ‘The Governor speaks for all on Goldman’s greed. He shows leadership where the Prime Minister and Chancellor stayed submerged. Starbucks are an
Those pushing for reform of the civil service have been heartened still further today by the number of interventions from politicians of other parties on the need for change. Yesterday they saw Tony Blair’s quotes in the Times about the problems with the service as a game-changer, and they are also pleased that former Labour
What did the Governor of the Bank of England think of Goldman Sachs’ plan to wait until the 50p rate is cut in April to pay bonuses? At this morning’s Treasury Select Committee, Mervyn King declined Teresa Pearce’s invitation to label it ‘morally repugnant’ but did declare it ‘depressing’, ‘clumsy’ and ‘lacking in care and
Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood has signed off on an agreed breach of collective responsibility in the boundaries vote, but what does that mean for the way the government works from now on? The Prime Minister’s official spokesman argued this afternoon that this did not in any way set a precedent for the way the
Personally, I don’t wear a cross, on the basis that I’m not much of an advertisement for Christianity and I’d risk diminishing the brand. But for Eric Pickles, Communities Secretary, and Nadia Eweida, the former British Airways employee who has just won her appeal about cross-wearing at work at the European Court of Human Rights, it’s a
How many people presently lamenting the demise of HMV (at least in its current incarnation) actually spent any money there these past, say, five years? Not too many, I suspect. And for good reason: HMV was not, by its end, very good. If it had been wiser or less complacent, it might have been better
I’ll confess to receiving the news of HMV going into administration with a heavy heart. Along with Woolworths, JJB Sports, Clinton Cards, Game, and Borders, it’s clear that most of the shops from my childhood are disappearing from the High Street. Some of these structural changes have been caused by the economic downturn and benign
Tragedy has struck Vogue House this morning as the sad news emerges that Tatler’s famous in house dachshund, Alan TBH Plumptre, is dead. Details are sketchy at the moment and Condé Nast are refusing to comment beyond saying that there was an ‘accident’, but Mr Steerpike can reveal London’s most glamorous puppy was killed by the
Number 10 has got quite the job to do over the next few days if it is to get backbenchers ready for David Cameron’s EU speech on Friday. Tory MPs are now obviously in a high state of excitement, but their expectations will inevitably be disappointed to some degree. Some are already expressing fears about
There certainly seems to be something to be said for keeping an effective minister in the same post. After two years and eight months in the job, Steve Webb is by far the longest-serving Pensions Minister since the post was created in 1998. And, as last week’s mid-term review showed, pensions is one area where
For the last six months or so, officials on both sides of the US/Mexico border have had their fingers crossed that the appalling violence perpetrated by Mexico’s warring drug gangs might be dying down. The new president, Peña Nieto, has a new, more conciliatory approach so, you know, maybe everyone will start playing nice… No
‘The relationship between my civil servants and me is summed up by trust and understanding. I don’t trust them and they don’t understand me,’ one Secretary of State likes to joke. The quip sums up the current, tense mood in Whitehall. Today’s Times has done a superb job chronicling just how bad things have got. Many
The ladies of the London chatterati are at each other’s throats. Left-wing identity politics has been eating itself since the New Year, when the leading feminists of Fleet Street went into battle over who is the better feminist. The great titan-esses are actually secret subversives determined to surrender their cause to subconscious patriarchy. Well, that’s
The perfect news to greet a freezing Britain today — energy bills are set to take another hike thanks to a series of dodgy wind energy contracts. According to today’s Telegraph, a ‘shocking series of errors’ has resulted in deals worth £17 billion stacked in the favour of turbine manufacturers. As well as wasting taxpayers’